Saturday, October 26, 2013

LIZZIE - A CD Review

I don’t doubt I’m the worst person
in the world to review this recording; in fact I shouldn’t even do it. You see,
I’m an old fashion guy who loves traditional musicals and to whom rock, even
pop, is something I don’t understand. It’s true, some modern musicals use rock
as its kind of music and I don’t doubt it works for the shows, but not on my
music player.

For example, when I bought the
RENT cast recording I couldn’t believe it had won the Tony Award for Best Original
Score. With the exception of “Seasons of Love” I didn’t enjoy any of the songs.
When I saw the show (a live DVD recording) I realized the score worked on stage
and was perfect for the show. But I still don’t like the music.

All of this to write a few words
about LIZZIE, a rock concept album that, like TOMMY and JESUS CHRIS SUPERSTAR, serves
as a reference to future stage productions. This is pure hard rock, or so I
think, and I really didn’t enjoy any of tracks. In fact, they all sound the
same to me, but I believe it may work on a stage.

As you can probably guess by the
title, it tells the legend of the infamous Lizzie Borden, an “axe-wielding
double-murderess” (a distant cousin of the lady murderesses of CHICAGO). The
subject seems a perfect pitch for this kind of heavy music and the cast (Carrie
Manolakos and Storm Large as the Borden sisters, plus Carrie Cimma and Ryah
Nixon) delivers strong voices. But this isn’t for me.

One thing I like, the fantastic
cover!

If you love hard rock with a
strong story and enjoy the likes of TOMMY or even RENT, I’m sure you’re going
to like this “musical” by Steven Cheslik-DeMeyer, Tim Maner and Alan Stevens
Hewitt.Rate: 1 (from 1 to 10)